My Other Blog

When is it time to call it racism?

What would this campaign be like if Obama were a member of the Keating 5 and was married to his second wife who had become addicted to pain killers? 

What would the Republicans say if  Biden were married to a member of an extremist party and if Biden himself had tried to censor books in the local library and fire municipal employees because they disagreed with him, and what might they say if Biden's minister said (as Ms. Palin's minister did) that Jews and Muslims were going to hell and that the conflict in the middle east is God's way of punishing the Jews for not accepting Christ?  How would the press react If Obama said that he "hates gooks and always will" as McCain did?

Which school you went to and how you did does not stand as a sole qualification, but what would this race be like if these were the resumes?

I celebrate that Obama is our first serious black candidate. I am ashamed this contest is close.

The Internet is an amazing place. I just stumbled across this letter I wrote to the editor of the NY Times that was published in April, 26 years ago.  Actually, not all that much has changed, except in magnitude.

MORE THAN HONOR AND OIL IN FALKLANDS WAR 
Published: April 11, 1982

To the Editor:

In his April 5 column, William Safire quoted a ''famed geopolitician'' anticipating that this would be ''a war between two civilized nations .... Wow.''

Mr. Safire assesses the situation and concludes that such a war will end with ''something for everybody - with the most important something the retention of national honor.'' His parting words: ''Good sailing, Maggie.''

Mr. Safire has revealed an uncivilized blood lust. This proper little war has already claimed three lives and could take many more. These are not flag-waving tin soldiers, fallen in defense of ''national honor,'' but young men with parts of their all-too-fragile bodies ripped to pieces; flesh torn apart amid blood and bits of gore. These are children screaming in pain, fathers who leave their families and a soon-forgotten generation of walking wounded.

As Mr. Safire stands at the berth, waiting on Mrs. Thatcher - who is not sailing at all; she is issuing the order which she hopes, with the rattling of her saber, will save her political career - let him ponder for just a moment the possible cost in lives and suffering of this avoidable little conflict.

These boys may be chewed up on a battlefield, far from home, in the hollow name of ''national honor,'' but truth is they shall have died defending Britain's dubious claim to offshore oil.

 

Check this out.   

Go to HRC and click on The Issues and choose Coming Out

You are taken to the Coming Out page, and the first link is Bisexual.

 If you click on that,  and then click on Your Stories…

There’s only one…

Amazingly (to me) I wrote this 4 years ago.  It’s pretty bad, but it was a start.

(sent to me by my daughter, making the rounds at Smith and elsewhere on the Internet. If you know the original source, please let me know.)

 

If words are your work, your avocation and your joy; you must take a look at Visual Thesaurus.  Full review here, but this is truly a great way to explore words visually.

[click on image to see full size]

A modest proposal

 I tried hard to write to Jeff Bezos (or anyone really) at Amazon, but they pretty much make it impossible, as far as I can tell.

So here is my letter.

Jeff,

I've been buying from Amazon for a long time; actually a long time.  I much prefer your UI and your customer service to other on line bookstores, though I admit I also buy from many other sites as well.

I am an Associate, we have Prime (of course) and I own my indispensable  Kindle  (57 books and more each day). Your music downloads are less expensive and higher quality than the alternative so you're my first choice there as well.  In short, while I'm sure I'm far from your biggest customer, I'm doing my share.

That said, like many customers, I buy some books for personal use and some for business use. You encourage 1-click ordering for both, by allowing me to set up multiple accounts in my 1-click drop down, but if I add a gift-certificate your policy of applying that certificate automatically (and then not letting me remove it once the order is "in process") defeats me nearly every time. Therefore I'd like to propose a modest change to the 1-click settings page. I'll assume you do not want to change your default as you want to use those certificates as quickly as possible, but a simple check box allowing me to turn off the default on given accounts would make a world of difference. (Please click on the image in the upper right to see what I have in mind).

You might also want to consider adding a suggestion box.

Thanks.

     Looking for something else on the Internet, I found this posting from two years ago. Thought it was worth a repost...

Not since Birmingham has the Catholic Church been so willing to turn its back on children, to further the causes of discrimination In one of the most astonishingly indefensible and uncharitable actions in the long, sordid history of the Catholic Church's war on homosexuality, the Boston Archdiocese's Catholic Charities announced today that they will no longer provide adoption services, rather than comply with state law that requires no discrimination against same-sex adoptive parents. Jesus called the children to him and said, "let the children come to me and do not stop them, because the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these."  - Luke 18, 15-16   Rev. Hehir, President Catholic Charities

 

Officials are very worried about a sudden outbreak of common sense among Massachusetts politicians.

The following is from the Boston Globe

The Mass. Senate voted to repeal the 1913 law barring marriages of

out-of-state gay couples. The House is expected to vote later this week.